How to Launch a Custom GPT for Free (and What to Check First)
Before you launch a custom GPT, read OpenAI’s current notice in your own account, because reports say the product is being retired in favour of plugins. If you can still publish one, keep the instructions and files portable, give the GPT a landing page you own, and treat the GPT as a demo that points to your product. Do not build an audience that lives only inside a store.
Can you still launch a custom GPT?
Use a simple decision rule. If your account no longer lets you create or publish a GPT, skip to the section on what survives and put your effort into the portable parts. If you can still publish and the retirement date is far away, the steps further down apply, but plan the launch as a short, cheap experiment and not as a foundation.
What is worth keeping if the platform changes?
A custom GPT is mostly four things: a set of instructions, some knowledge files, optional actions that call your API and a name with a sharing setting. Three of those are yours and portable. The sharing link and any place in a store are not.
| Part | Portable? | What to do about it |
|---|---|---|
| Instructions | Yes, as plain text | Keep a copy in your repository; the same text works as a system prompt elsewhere |
| Knowledge files | Yes | Store the originals and a note on how they were prepared |
| Actions (calls to your API) | Only the API itself | Keep your own endpoint documented so any assistant could call it |
| Share link and store listing | No | Never make it the only way to reach the product |
The practical move is to build the same behaviour as a small web page or API on your own domain and use the GPT, while it exists, as a way in. The AI app playbook covers cost caps for the own-domain version.
What goes on the page you own?
- What the GPT does in one line, written for the person who would use it, not as a feature list.
- Three example conversations with the starter question shown, so visitors see the result before opening anything.
- A link to the GPT and, next to it, the alternative way in: a web version, an email, or a waitlist.
- A note on the files it was given. If you uploaded someone else’s material, make sure you have the right to; otherwise the launch can end on a takedown.
That page is what you submit to launch boards. The launch form on this site is free and has no queue, and the outbound link on your launch page is an ordinary followed link, so it points at the page you control, not at a chat window that may disappear.
How do you launch one while it is still possible?
- Write the conversation starters as the three questions a new user would really ask, not as a menu of features.
- Test the GPT on twenty real questions, noting where it ignores its instructions or quotes the wrong file.
- Choose the sharing setting deliberately. A link-only GPT is visible only to people you send it to; a store listing is a separate step with its own checks, so read the current requirements in your account.
- Share it in the places where the answer helps someone: a community that asks that question every week, a newsletter you already write.
- Tag the link so you can tell visits from each place, as in the UTM checklist.
Browse the custom GPT places for lists of directories and communities that mention GPTs, and read each one’s current status; a directory built around a product that is retiring may be quiet or gone.
How do you learn from a short-lived launch?
A GPT’s own analytics are thin, so count what you can see: clicks to the GPT from your tagged links, sign-ups to your waitlist or web version, and replies from people who tried it. The question to answer in two weeks is whether anyone wants the behaviour badly enough to leave the chat window for your product. If yes, build the own-domain version first. If no, you have lost a few evenings and learned that cheaply. For ideas that fit this shape, see the board’s AI agent ideas.
Frequently asked questions
Is the custom GPT store still open?
We could not confirm it. OpenAI’s help pages blocked our automated check, and coverage citing them reports that custom GPTs are being retired in favour of plugins. Open your own account, read the current notice and check whether you can still create or publish before you plan a launch around it.
Can I move a GPT to another assistant?
The instructions are plain text and the knowledge files are your own, so you can reuse them in other assistants as a system prompt and a document set. Actions depend on your API, which you keep. The sharing link and any store listing do not move, so keep your own page as the entry point.
Do I need a website to launch a GPT?
You need one page you control, even a single screen. It gives launch boards a stable address to link to and gives users a way in if the GPT disappears. The answer page on whether you need a website to launch covers what that page can be.
Can I charge for a custom GPT?
Do not assume so. Check your account for the current rules on monetisation. The safer route is to charge for something you control: a web version, an API or a template pack, with the GPT as a free demo that sends people to it.
Written by Post your build ideas with AI assistance and edited for this site. Where a page names another product, the facts came from that product’s own pages on the date shown above; terms change, so check them before you rely on them. About the publisher.